age play

I know there are many subs who like to call their Masters "Daddy". I suppose part of it is the feeling of care and support that they get from this.

I am not being critical of such couples but it is not for me. I would feel very uncomfortable if a sub called me "Daddy" - though I suppose honoured as well that they were perhaps expressing a deep level of love and trust towards me.

Does it help to explain my difficulties with this if we put it the other way round. Would others not be discomforted if I were to call a sub "daughter"?

age and experience

I sometimes wonder when I see female subs advertising themselves on contact sites who are still only eighteen or nineteen yet describe "several years" of "experience" on the "scene". Perhaps it is because I was much, much older before I felt mature enough and experienced enough to dip my toes so very tentatively into this area of life.

Can one know one is a sub at that age? Perhaps as with gender assignment or hetero/gay/bi sexuality some do know their true nature at that age ... but there is something about it that worries me a little. These are such complex areas of emotions and relationships where many very mature subs and Doms still struggle to understand their own feelings and nature. Perhaps it is a gift to be so very clear at such a young age.

Perhaps I am being overprotective of young women who truly know their own mind and nature.

But look at it the other way round. Would you be happy to submit to an eighteen year old Dom?

I suggest perhaps not ... but does not a sub also need experience and maturity as much as a Dom?

being lent to a stranger

The novel "The Story of O" starts with O being taken to a place where she will be used by strangers. It is a fantasy held by many perhaps and for most it will always remain just that.

toy wrote in her blog recently of being lent to a friend of her Owners. You can read it here: my Owner's friend. For the moment it is a fantasy or a threat. I guess though she is prepared for it to happen and would acquiesce as she is such delightfully obedient slut to her Owner.

First I should make something very clear. I do not normally discuss individuals here. I am interested in the discussion of ideas not of personalities. So what follows is not intended in an sense as any criticism of toy or of her Owner. I have known toy online for a long time. I regard her as an online friend. We have even played strip scrabble together online! (She beat me!) So my comment on her blog was spurred by my friendship rather than any negative thoughts.

It did make me think abut the principle of lending out a sub. I can imagine that frisson of fear and anticipation going through a sub if that was hinted at. I have remembered I once lent a sub to stranger - but in a very different way. This was a couple of years or so ago. I was going away for a long while and knew I would not be able to maintain regular contact with my online sub of that time for quite a few weeks. She was going through a difficult time and would miss my support. So I told her I was going to lend her out. I actually did so but it was to a female sub friend who we both knew. She managed to maintain giving my sub that helpful support while I was away - so there was no abuse involved in that - other than, possibly, the fright my sub had when I told her she was to be lent out!

Let us though get back to the scenario of a sub being lent to a stranger for his use.

A sub could refuse, walk away from it and even the relationship if necessary. To that extent it is consensual.

But if it is being done purely to please her Master - then is the act truly consensual? I have my concerns about the morality of this and the emotional security of the sub.

I hope I am not being "holier than though" about this for I have been involved myself in a similar situation. I was the "other man". I was given a woman to use for the afternoon. In that situation though it was the woman who wanted to be used by strangers. It was part of a journey of submission and humiliation that she craved for herself and was organised carefully by a Master and Protector.

I ensured first that the woman was totally happy with the arrangement. I hugged her at the start and made it clear she could leave then or at any time. I tried to make her feel safe. We had a good time and later she wrote of it in her online journal making it clear she had enjoyed it. I quoted it on my own blog then. She has become a friend and we correspond and meet occasionally.

So these things can work out well.

However the situations are slightly different. I was engaged in an activity that she had requested. That she wanted. It wasn't something that she did not want and was only enduring through pressure from her Master. As a responsible man I could not have "used" her if it had not been her wish - because she wanted it, not because she wanted to please her Master. If it had just been to please her Master I would have felt I was an abuser or even a rapist.

So I worry not just about an instruction to serve a stranger which may be designed to test loyalty and levels of submission but also about the position of the other man who may be prepared to abuse the sub with no questions asked.

For if it happens in the real world - not a blog fantasy - then is that not close to rape?

violence

In my last post "A contradiction" I found myself in the comments discussing the word "violence". It seemed the wrong word for what we do. "Violence" seems to include in its meaning an emotional connotation that is negative and the opposite of what is intended for instance in a spanking or beating in a D/s or BDSM context.

Tristan wrote "It's not the same thing as violence. ... It's just different."

Selkie emphasised the importance of motivation and the need for it to become a dynamic.

I continued to feel uncomfortable with the word "violence" and wondered whether it was possible to deny that a beating, a caning, a flogging or a spanking is actually a violent act within certain contexts. Then by chance I came across the following by Lady Alpha as I was looking through notes for future posts.

"By definition, 'violence' involves aggressive behaviour. By definition, 'aggressive' involves hostile behaviour. Therefore to be be violent, one must also be hostile.

"Clearly in consensual D/s, even if that consent is for subsequent non-consensual action, or is for behaviour which is challenging and painful, maybe even degrading, hostility is not present. The moment it is, D/s becomes abuse. So violence and 'D/s' as we know it cannot co-exist."

This seems to argue very articulately that if such an act take place within a consensual BDSM context then it cannot be said to be "violence".

I am tempted by this argument but still have some concerns. I would be interested in the views of others.

A contradiction

On Uncle Agony I recently published an excerpt from a new ebook by Vivian called "How to Get the Spanking You Want" Asking for It, Getting It & Making It Better.

In it she explains why many women who crave a spanking may find it difficult to persuade their husbands do it. She writes that, "... modern men have, by and large, been raised to believe it’s wrong and abusive to hit a woman for any reason at all. Period. End of discussion. This is probably where your man’s head is."

A sub friend of mine who could not persuade her husband to dominate her described the issue to me in exactly the same way.

But I am a "modern man" in that sense. I was brought up like that too. I still believe it is wrong to hit a woman - or a man or a child. It is not something I would do. Except ...

Am I not the same man who wrote a recent post about how much I wanted to beat a woman, to watch her wriggle and squirm? A blogging friend wrote and told me she had been surprised by the post. Had she forgotten I was a Dom?

So can I be both a "modern man" and a Dom? How do I resolve the contradiction?